Transition

autumn

thick juicy green

fades to whispering wildfire

and falls

the sun shifts

spilling cold diamonds 

across slow water

a scrawny yellow bird

watches the yard

from atop the feeder

I love autumn. While many people see it as an ending, I see it as the first step toward a new beginning. The plants and animals prepare themselves for a season of dormancy. They shed the unnecessary and go deep, protecting themselves from the inevitable challenges of winter and reading themselves to welcome a new season of birth and growth. I find inspiration and courage in autumn. I, too, can gather what I need, let go of what I don't, and look forward with determination.

Color Me Green: Illness, Love, Jealousy, and Permission

I'm feeling a little green around the gills. 

Strep throat is visiting me again. When I went to the doctor the yesterday he examined my throat and said it was not too red, but he would do a swab test just in case because I am high risk--I'm around elementary kids and one of my darlings coughed right in my face the other day.

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You know how you read all the signs, posters, and degrees on the wall in the little check up room while you wait?  All the posters were the same size, more like info-graphics than straight out 'read-me' text. They were laminated. The degrees told me this doctor finished up school in the last few years. While I waited he printed out and an organized OTC medicine guide he'd made himself. He even including herbal remedies. Somehow, it all reminded me of my classroom. He really made me chuckle when he came back in and told me my 'spidey-sense' was right--maybe because I had on a Daily Planet t-shirt and he thought it was the Daily Bugle?--and that I did indeed have strep throat.

Our love is evergreen.

My boys--son and hubby--each gave me a gift yesterday. Son came home from school to have lunch with me. We've been in a rough patch lately; he's sixteen, 'nough said. He made a cup of coffee for me, brought it to me at the kitchen table, and scooted his chair around to sit by me. I was Tweeting my pitches for #PitMad. We trolled the feed and laughed at some, wondered why some were getting likes, and he pointed out a very select few he thought were interesting. At one point I realized this was the least tense I'd felt with him in a while--it was kinda bitter sweet.

Hubby knows I love Pho and that the best in town is made by the mother of our Club member, Lan. Unable to get his hands on that, he stopped at the next best place and brought home hot soup for my poor throat.  He even asked for extra Hoisin sauce. He's my hero.

I'm controlling my green-eyed monster.

I know the literary world is competitive--at that is part of the rush of voluntarily putting myself on the chopping block by entering competitions like #PitMad or #PitchSlam. Unlike other writing competitions in which we send our pages off to some journal or organization, and then waiting to hear back in a month or two, these competitions tease the bejezzers out of us because of the Twitter feeds.

I admit I was glad for the commiseration of my son yesterday when we searched the feeds for entries similar to mine, and found one or two which got 'likes' from agents requesting pages--while mine did not.

Honestly, I don't think the pitches were any stronger than mine, nor did my green-eyed monster. So what made the difference for the agents? Did they see the other posts first? Had they met the author(s) at conferences? Is the universe sending me a message?

How the heck do I know!

I just have to remember the words of wisdom I have heard so often lately, 'it's all subjective'.

I am giving myself the green light.

My plan is to keep moving forward. The long and short of it is to use what I've learned to polish my pages--again--and then start the querying process. 

In the meantime, I have a historical romance in the planning stages and a sci-fi MS I can pick up again. A few short story competitions are on the horizon and I have a great local writing group to keep working and celebrating with! My network is spreading on-line, I have new CPs, and I am inspired by the perseverance and encouragement I find from these connections.

There is work to do.

Grandma

Grandma Lorraine and her amazing smile.
(I'm the blondie in the pink shorts!)

My grandma Lorraine was one of my favorite people. I never doubted for a second that I was one of her favorite people. She came to stay with my parents for an extended stay (a week? more?) and would often tell me about the important bonding we did during that time. That bond remained strong until she died. I wrote about the depth of our connection on that day, promising that she would always be in my thoughts.

Then I stopped thinking about her.

I didn't know I hadn't been thinking about her until last week when I was talking with a dear friend about my family tree and the bonds therein. It was only then that I realized how little I had thought about Grandma in the last decade. It's not like I forgot she existed or I stopped loving her... I just...didn't think about her.

As my friend and I talked, it became obvious that my lack of thought was out of self-defense. Thinking and talking about her brought up an ocean of self-recrimination.

I wasn't there for her when she needed me.

I didn't go to her when she had her stroke.

I was in a movie theater in California instead of by her bed in Minnesota when she died.

Although my mind could rationalize all the truths behind these perceived failures--I had a job and a life in California that didn't allow for hopping on a plane whenever I wished; we had a very tight budget that year (and many years before and after); I didn't know she was going to die that day or during that two hour block of time--my heart never forgave itself. I spent the last ten years blaming myself for failing her.

As these things came to light, my friend and her beautifully empathetic horse helped me sort through them, helped me recognize the pain for what it was and forgive myself. She asked me to remember the bond my grandmother and I shared and feel her presence around me even now.

My beautiful aunt, when she was much younger.

The next day, my mother and her sister came to visit. My aunt has Down's Syndrome and paranoid schizophrenia. Despite being born in an era when children with developmental disabilities were regularly shuffled off to care facilities and forgotten about, she was never treated any differently by my grandparents. She went to school, held a job, had a boyfriend and even lived in her own apartment for a while. After my grandfather died, she moved back in with my grandmother. She spent more time with my Grandma than any other person on Earth, I think.

During her visit to my house, she kept turning to me and saying, "You look different." This didn't surprise me much as A) my hair is currently purple and B) my aunt often lives in a world of her own making comments that may or may not be relevant to what the rest of us are experiencing. We spent several lovely hours together. As we walked out to the car together to say goodbye, my aunt became weepy. She clutched my hand and cried. When we asked what was wrong, she simply repeated, "I'm losing you!" I assured her that I was not going anywhere and that I would be coming to visit her soon.

A few days later, I saw my mom again. She told me that my aunt had remained sorrowful for most of the two hour trip home. Usually, her emotions are fleeting and her thoughts are distracted by pleasurable things (like the cheeseburger she got to have on the way home), so this was strange. As we talked about it, we realized that I am not only the person in the family who looks most like my grandmother, but I am also currently the same age as my grandmother was when my aunt was a young girl. It's very possible that when my aunt told me I looked different and that she was sad to be losing me, she was actually talking to my grandmother.

I can't think of a better reminder that she is always with me.

Grandma and me.

Unstoppable

Preface: One of my favorite things to do is to get a prompt of some kind and see where it takes me. I get an email from Daily Post every morning. On July 28, the prompt was "Unstoppable". This is what immediately came to mind...

***

As I run through my morning media checks, I sip my tea and watch my little corner of the world. The dining room window overlooks a narrow section of the Mississippi River as it meanders through central Minnesota. "My river" attracts lots of wildlife, and I have strategically placed feeders around the yard to assist "my birds" as they raise their young and prepare for the inevitable winter. My favorite feathered visitors this year are a trio of juvenile blue jays (collectively known as "the Jays", an obscure reference to America's Next Top Model) and a trio of juvenile pileated woodpeckers (affectionately dubbed "Larry, Moe and Curly").

When we bought the house, it came with a large, covered bird feeder, complete with a squirrel-blocking tube around the pole. This great feeder, backdropped by the river and framed by white pine and oak branches, is a favorite to all kinds of birds. From the very beginning, it was a challenge to keep the feeder full of sunflower seeds in the face of such popularity. Lately, however, the task has reached Sisyphean proportions.

There are two things you should know about my family before I continue with this story.

The first thing is that my husband was born, raised and lived solely (until 2 years ago) in southern California, where squirrels are not common, especially not the big, bushy-tailed kind that fill the treetops in Minnesota. Despite my best efforts, he refuses to recognize them as the noisy tree-rats they are. He thinks they're "cute".

The second thing is that we have two good-sized dogs. (In California, land of the yappy lapdog, I used to describe them as "big dogs". Here, they are dwarfed by the hunting, herding and sled-pulling breeds preferred by Minnesotans.) They are good dogs, sweet and sociable with people, but I've been unable to break them of two bad habits: they chase small animals (like our elderly cat) and they run off whenever they get a chance. The first bad habit means they are not allowed in the house. The second means we had to fence a large portion of our yard, including the section that runs parallel to the river.

The new fence runs directly under the sunflower feeder. The squirrels think this is fantastic as it allows them to circumvent the anti-squirrel tube. Apparently squirrels are a gossipy bunch, because in the past month the squirrel population has exploded. Great big, pompous gray squirrels. Twitchy little red squirrels. Ninja-like black squirrels. I can't look out a window without seeing at least one. The dogs don't even chase them anymore; there are so many I think they've decided our yard is a squirrel sanctuary.

My husband likes this very much. He takes pictures and videos of them hanging upside down on the bird feeders and daydreams about feeding them peanuts from his hand.

I sneak up on them, getting as close as I can before clapping my hands and barking loudly (I'm trying to model the appropriate behavior for my dogs who are understandably confused). I encourage the bigger birds to "Show them who's boss!" and "Take back the feeder!", but they have yet to take my advice. They just collect in the trees around the squirrel infested feeder and sulk. When the squirrels have left, the pileated woodpeckers land on the roof of the empty feeder and drum their displeasure.

So, I pour more seeds into the feeder and hope the birds get their fill before the squirrels come back. I've also been teaching my pup, Wiggles, the difference between naughty cat chasing and good girl squirrel chasing. The squirrels may be unstoppable, but so are Wiggles and I.

Could You Be a Situational Procrastinator?

I might be a situational procrastinator. 

What do you think?

-I knew I was getting an ear infection, but wanted to finish The Last Kingdom on Netflix, so I put off going to the doctor until after regular hours and had to go to the urgent clinic. (I guess this is a weird king of Kuddos to the show.)

RESULT: My ear is killing me despite the meds and I wish I had gone sooner.

-My son is nearly ready for college application time. I wanted some bonding-time with him this summer, so jumped right in and planned a trip for the two us. 

RESULT: Seven days, five states and three schools later, we learned a bit about each other and it was a great experience. 

-I go back to teacher schedule on Monday. For two weeks my teacher inbox has been pinging with meeting and training announcement. There are two I am to complete from home and that I am avoiding, one for a new district wide tech program and one that comprises of six hours of online video torture followed by a repeated testing salt wash.

RESULT: TBD. Truthfully, I'm not a rule breaker and I hate to miss deadlines, so I will get these done. But you can bet I won't start the tech training until the day before it's due and the other doesn't HAVE TO be done until October, so....

-With school starting back I should not have been surprised when I got the call to go move my classroom (its a yearly ordeal). I thought I was smart by asking about this problem at the end of last year (was told I would not move and thus packed the cupboards full instead of sticking everything in easily transportable boxes), but alas...

RESULT: I got my butt up there and moved my stuff and got the basic setup of the new room done. Why? Because this work effected other people. If I did not do my part, others could not do theirs.

-Weeding. Sucks. I am way more interested in sleeping in while I can than getting up early (so not to die of heat stoke) just so I can pull weeds from a 120 ft long rock garden. Especially since hubby already bought this grass/weed killer easy pump thingy for me and I haven't use it. Yeah.

RESULT: I weeded. I sprayed. I left the pulled weeds in the grass planning to ask my son to take the mowing over them to pick them up. I didn't ask or he didn't hear and they stayed for a week. The weeds dried up nicely in the sun, got watered by the irrigation system and now I have MORE weeds.

-At the start of summer I sat down and made a spreadsheet of upcoming writing competitions. It is a great sheet, in order by date and then alphabetized with all kinds of handy columns. I then picked two I thought I was nearly ready for.

RESULT: I was overzealous. No, I could not meet the deadline for a travel article because honestly, I couldn't decide if my ideas or trips were article worthy next to the other already published articles. I did start taking notes for a short story idea but decided not to enter because the idea is too big for a short story (I'm not abandoning it, though. It's on the slow burner for now.)

-Scanning through Twitter last week, I came across the #PitchWars writing competition. I emailed my writing group buddies who have manuscripts completed, agonized over my query and synopsis, and edited my 1st chapter for the 123rd-130th times.

RESULT: I made my submission yesterday. Two days before the end of the sub window. 

Is this kind situational procrastination normal?

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Yes. We all avoid situations which we find disheartening and wind up finding our happy place instead-my ear infection being a prime example. 

It's also a matter of motivation. Looking over my list, I found I am more motivated by close deadlines and taking action when other people are counting on me.

"Chronic procrastinators have perpetual problems finishing tasks, while situational ones delay based on the task itself." (source)

I take heart in this statement. I am not a chronic procrastinator. I finish many tasks and finish them well, thank you.

But I do have this problem...

“You know what you ought to do and you’re not able to bring yourself to do it. It’s that gap between intention and action.”

This quote below seems reasonable to me. As a busy person, one must learn to prioritize. Sometimes work wins, sometimes home life, sometimes massages and pedicures win.

"...procrastinators calculate the fluctuating utility of certain activities: pleasurable ones have more value early on, and tough tasks become more important as a deadline approaches. 

The more I read of the source article, the more I believe I am not the typical procrastinator who never completes a task, or makes lists of jobs to do, does one, shuffles the list, and does one more.

Maybe I am not a procrastinator. 

I don't fit anything on the list from Psychology Today.

After reading, this article (which I plan to share with my students), I think what I need to focus on is my attitude towards tasks-make myself find the positives and just get started. Again, looking at my list above, I can see how I've done this for the items I started on right away.

How to find the positive?

Here is a compounded list of steps from the Positivity Blog which I plan to take.

1. Find the optimistic viewpoint in a negative situation.

4. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

6. Add value and positivity to someone else’s life.

7. Exercise regularly and eat and sleep well.

11. Mindfully move through your day.

Self-Doubt: The Poison Ivy of the Mind

A few weeks ago, we made our annual summer migration to central Minnesota. There are lots of little chores that accompany getting settled in our new place, most of which my husband and I share equally. There's one job that I do all by myself, though.


Our neighborhood, like many wooded areas in Minnesota, is overrun with poison ivy. When I say overrun, I mean it's the predominant foliage anywhere it isn't actively destroyed. Our yard is mostly free of the stuff, thanks to the diligent care of the previous owners, but when we arrive each summer, I'm tasked with eradicating any adventuring sprouts.

I grew up in northern Minnesota, running wild through the woods whenever weather permitted, and I have never once reacted to poison ivy. I suspect I am immune to its toxins, although I won't be rolling around in woods to test that theory any time soon. My husband, born and raised in southern California, is allergic to everything. He attracts mosquitoes, ticks, and pollen like squirrels to a birdfeeder, and his immune system overreacts to it all. He's never come in contact with poison ivy, but I honestly fear what would happen if he did. We're talking hospital stays and IV meds. As a precaution, I fight the poison ivy that constantly threatens to overrun our yard alone.

As I sprayed the other day, I fretted about my recent lack of writing. June was a blur of vacation, packing, migrating, unpacking, and celebrating major life events with people I love. Alone, each of these is enough to derail my process for a few days. Back-to-back, like they were this year, they've erased much of the year's progress toward accountability and motivation.

Confidence is like the cyclamen, one of my favorite flowering houseplants. With the right attention and care, it improves your writing with its vibrant energy. Turn your back and it keels right over and dies.

The beautiful, flowering bed of confidence I so carefully built on my successes in April has wilted from neglect, overrun once again by the poison ivy of the mind, self-doubt. How dare I call myself a writer if I'm not writing? What if there are no more ideas? Why would anyone want to read what I've written?

The noxious weeds of self-doubt are many and they are hearty. They thrive on neglect. Just as I am the only one who can deal with the poison ivy in our yard, I'm the only one who can weed out the self-doubt spreading through my mind.

My husband's safety and health are very important to me. I go after poison ivy aggressively and without hesitation because I know how dangerous it could be for him. Self-doubt is just as dangerous to my own mental health and productivity. I need to apply the same enthusiasm to eliminating it. If only it were as easy as finding the right poison to spray.

I've been doing some reading on self-doubt and how to overcome it recently, and I've found several articles that proves helpful.

• Here's a brief summary of self-doubt, how it develops and some of the ways it can manifest. 
• Although I generally mistrust anything that claims personal growth is "simple", these 7 Simple Steps are clear and reasonable.
• This article discusses why self-doubt can be so convincing and shares 11 Ways to fight it.

My research also led me to information on Impostor Syndrome.

• This article explains what Impostor Syndrome is and what it looks like.
• Here, the author talks about why Impostor Syndrome isn't actually a syndrome at all and how it's even more common than most people think.
• The end of this article about Impostor Syndrome outlines some coping strategies.
• If you experience Impostor Syndrome, you're in good company. Many very successful people struggle to accept their own success.

The poison ivy around my yard is turning brown and withering away. Perhaps, if I apply these tips liberally, my self-doubt will begin to do the same.

Do you struggle with self-doubt or Impostor Syndrome? Care your tips and strategies in the comments below! 

Helping a Busy Kid, Mom Style

Yesterday my husband and I did the unthinkable. We cleaned our teen son's room while he is away at camp. I'm not talking about running the vacuum and folding clothes. No, this was a complete overhaul.

Were we bored? Are we crazy? Snooping around? None of the above. The idea came from a video my husband shared with me on Facebook a while back. The point was that sometimes we forget how busy our kids really are.

This came just after I was ready to freak out about his dirty room-again. Can it really be that hard to just stick your socks in a drawer? Maybe put dirty clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor next to the hamper? The answer is yes, kinda.

This also came after he forgot to close the garage door, twice; left a competition permission slip on his desk that he never asked us to sign and missed the competition; broke his second tennis racket of the year; failed a chemistry test, and didn't see/forward the email about his tuition being due.

I was at my wits end and obviously keeping a mental tally of all the things he was doing wrong.

The video got me thinking about the activities he is balancing and what I was doing at his age. 

• I was in the band, so I spent time marching and practicing. I took regular classes at school, hung out with friends a lot and worked part-time at a fast food joint. I had a treacherously messy room. Mom used to go in with a box, scoop clothes off the floor and ground me from them. Sometimes I didn't even notice they were gone.

• He is taking advanced classes at the high school and a few starter courses at the college. He volunteered over 200 hours last year. Tennis practice or his part time job take his time after school. He is the president of a school club, so that takes time and so do student government and honor society commitments. If his '72 Ford, which he is resorting himself, clunks out then he has to spend time on that. (At his age I didn't even know you had to change the oil on a car.) Homework needs to be done at some point and so does hanging out with friends or just relaxing on his own for a bit.

Looking at the 'room situation' through the lenses of priority and time, I can see how cleaning his room takes a back seat. Knowing this, I still don't plan to back off, but I will help a little more.

And that is why hubby and I decided to clean his room for him. 

We moved all the furniture, vacuumed behind everything, cleaned the floorboards even. The desk and the dresser got moved to opposite sides of the room and we took out a shelving unit he was basically using as a dumping ground-which drove me nuts because it was his library! (The books were rescued and moved to the main library in our house.)

There are now sections for tennis stuff, work/auto clothes stuff and his volunteering program stuff. We took out a laundry basket full of clothes for Goodwill and a whole trash bag of, well, trash.

Mikers made an appearance. Mikers is the old stuffed doggy toy his Nana gave him. Poor thing is matted, but well loved. We placed him in the under-the-bed storage along with a few other keepsakes.

We sorted his school stuff and when put altogether, we discovered he does not need any new supplies. We found the missing piece to a toy we are trying to sell, about ten Nerf darts, an old, rusty car part, and three months worth of unused contacts (old prescription). He'd received a tennis medal I knew nothing about. The book he swore he could not find-yeah, on his bookshelf. How many half-used, expired tubes of sunblock can one person have? Five. That's like $60 in sunblock!

The desk is clean for the first time in forever.
He just has to go through the stack of notes he
saved from his last classes.

It took a few hours of teamwork to get this done. I can only imagine how long it would take a teenager not too motivated to clean to get the job done. At one point I started to worry he would be upset to find things moved or given away. Really though, I think he will be relieved to have a fresh start. Just because it is summer does not mean he's not got a lot on his plate.

Now I have to refresh my understanding of his stress levels. As a busy mom of a busy kid, I tend to forget he is still learning how to manage his time-and common sense.

I will help with his laundry. I will fold the clothes. (He has to match the socks. I just can't stand doing it.)

I will remind him to add dates to the family calendar. I can show him, again, ways to keep his school work organized. 

I will remember to tell him I love him and I am proud of him.

I may even help him clean his room again.

But, I will not clean his bathroom!

Sunshine Blogger Nominations-Who Is In?

The Sunshine Blogger Award is given to those who are inspiring and bring sunshine into the lives of their readers and fellow bloggers through their blogspace and/or their social media.

This week I had the honor of being nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by my writing group member and fellow MCC contributor, Solange Hommel.

How does the Sunshine Blogger Award work? It’s pretty simple, really. 

• Name drop and link to the blog of the person who nominated you.
• Answer the eleven questions from the blogger who nominated you.
• Nominate up to eleven wonderful bloggers and write (or borrow/steal) eleven questions for them to answer.

Here are my answers to Solange's questions:

What do you snack on while you’re writing? I try, I really do, to stay away from the sweets while I am writing. But alas, I am weak. Typically I go for candy-preferably peanut butter M&M's-or crackers. Both are no-nos because they make me gain weight, so I am trying to be smart and not have bad stuff in the house. I'm also making it a goal to work out more and to not sit at the computer for such long stretches of time. My current go-to snacks are nuts, lots of green tea and coffee (minus the creamer) and left overs.  

What’s your favorite location for maximum creativity and productivity? How often are you able to visit this setting? We have a space in the house we call the library because it holds an awesome armoire we found to hold all our books. The room also has a couch, a few chairs and an ottoman, and a coffee table. Plenty of natural light comes in all day which I know it better for our brains. I can take a quick, cheap coffee break and sometimes even get a load of laundry done as I write. Most important though is the room's position at the front of the house. No one passes through and if anyone joins me it is because they have work to do as well. Confession-I can visit this spot as often as I like, yet I tend not to use it as often as I should. (I'm currently on one of the chairs by the window with my laptop on my knees because my son took over the couch and coffee table for his work in his first college course. Snack provided-a fruit smoothy with broccoli stem trims left from dinner and Bulgarian yogurt.)

What is that one weird trick you can do? I can pick up things with my toes. You know how it is when your USB drive drops just behind the couch and it is easier to stick your foot back there than move the whole couch? Yeah, I can handle that. My husband thinks it's gross. 

Tell us about the project you’re most proud of completing. Is this a trick question, Soli? I'm proud of each for different reasons, I guess. Torrent because it was my first and I got my favorite lit agency to take a look at the first 30 pages; The Ragnarok Recurrence because it was my second and I felt like I knew more about what the heck I was doing; and The Children of Muspell because it was my first short story attempt and it placed in a competition on Chanillo.

Which clique did you hang out with in high school? If you could go back, would you hang out with the same crowd or choose different friends? Now I have to decide just how honest I want to be. Jeez, might as well go for it. I had a strong group of friends in high school. I am still friends with many of them today. My besties have been with my since early grade school. Truthfully, we were an eclectic mix. Band nerds, stoners, academics-but none of us were really committed to any of it. We sort of drifted when we were in those separate groups, but flourished when we were together. Now the really honest bit. Looking back at what we did and who we each became, I am not sure I would surround myself with ALL the same people. Could I have picked more driven people? Yes. Could I have picked those who would have been more loyal? Yes. Should I have listened to the advice they gave. Not always. The thing is, these people shaped me. Our shared laughter, tears, frights, and fights made me who I was at the time. Now I recognize who was best for me and who was not.

How have you improved the world during your lifetime? I teach gifted students to know who they are and how to manage their talents. My world improvement plan is long term with the rewards to come in about 20 years when these kids grow up to make the next big innovations and discoveries.

Teleportation. Would you do it? Why or why not? With the tech we have right now (and I know someone is working on it!), definitely no. I am simply not that trusting. Once the method is perfected, then yes, I think I would. I love to travel, but I don't like the actual go-from-here-to-there part of it. If I could skip the middle man and jump from one destination to another, I would teleport. Part of me is thinking of the whole molecular puzzle I would become. That does freak me out. So, whoever out there is working on this, please try something that only bends space and time, not our bodies.

What is your favorite stupid joke? Why did the boy throw the clock out the window?  He wanted to see time fly. (Oh, so corny!)

What charitable organization do you think more people should support? I don't have a specific charity in mind, but I'd like to see more support for the homeless in America; especially homeless veterans. Why is it the populace and the government are more willing to send aid to other countries than to work towards helping our own citizens? My friend's husband recently went through training to become a deacon. Part of his training was to spend the weekend as a homeless man in downtown Austin. The point was to learn empathy and to look at a situation from all sides. I try to do the same when I see a person in need, yet I am not sure how to help.

What is one topic you would never be able to write about? Why? Politics. It is a huge turn off for me. I'm not interested, therefore I do not know enough about it to write from multiple view points or to come up with some interesting angle.

Name three things that are always in your fridge. 1) Milk; we buy the grocery store brand because it is lactose free, and has less sugar and more protein than regular milk. Also, it tastes better than other lactose free milks. We have been experimenting with almond milk and coconut milk. 2) Eggs; I'm not particular on the brand. I look for the best price. They do have to be from cage free hens raised without antibiotics and hormones (same goes for our meat). Ideally, the hens would be farm raised/free range. Sometimes I can get eggs from our friends who keep chickens. 3) Sandwich meat; I try to get the least processed meat I can, but the cost is prohibitive. I've settled on Butterball's natural turkey slices. They make an easy grab-and-go protein snack and for the hungrier of us in the house, the slices are there for a quick sandwich. 

Now I get to nominate others whose blogs and social media spread good vibes:

J. Rae Moore is a friend to me in many ways. She taught me about being a mother of gifted kids, how to maintain a positive attitude and more about writing than I can list. She is a member of my writing group and will be a contributor to this blog.

Amanda Noddings does a great job sharing inspirational messages about obtaining your goals. We met in high school (in band), but thanks to her media I know her much better now than I ever did back then.

I don't know her, but Katy on Gone Paleo... with the Occasional Faileo makes me laugh. I came across her site while looking for Paleo recipes.

Nat Russo is the author of the Mukhtaar Chronicles, a series of fantasy novels. He keeps a blog of writer tips. I've borrowed a lot of his ideas for beta-reading.

Brad P. Christy is another author friend of mine. His current blog combines his love of horror movies and wine. 

I met Nikki Loftkin at my first Writers' League of Texas conference and I kept bumping into her because of commonalities like gifted education, writing for YA and living in the same general area.

This guy, Gary McDaniel III, impressed me with his blog. I guess that's because he is young and taking on so much-and he has unique ideas. And he kinda reminds me of my students.

I like the blog Pub Rants maintained by agent Kristin Nelson because she teaches and tells it like it is. This is my top pick agency.

Ginny Isbelle is funny and one of the high school friends I am so glad to still be in contact with. Catch one of her stand-up comedy appearances in Spokane. I follow her on Facebook and now challenge her to spread her humor to more people.

My questions for these folks are:

1. What’s your favorite location for maximum creativity and productivity? How often are you able to visit this setting?
2. If I gave you $40,000 to start a business, what would you start?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you?
4. Coke, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper?
5. When you were ten, what did you want to be when you grew up?
6. What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?
7. How would you describe the color yellow to somebody who is blind?
8. Tell us about the project you’re most proud of completing.
9. Who has impressed you lately?
10. Which is more believable-dragons or fairies?
11. What is your best family moment?